After 18 years in operation, Kit Carson Correctional Center shuttered at the end of July. Located in Burlington, on Colorado’s eastern plains, the minimum security prison had a maximum of capacity of 1488 inmates. When it closed there were 400. The remaining inmates were transferred to two other facilities in Colorado also owned by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the private prison company that owns Kit Carson.
A dwindling prison population due to drug sentencing reform and legislative and ballot initiatives in conjunction with the efforts of a growing chorus of prison reform advocates such as Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition (CCJRC) all contributed to the closure.
According to their website, CCJRC, located in Lincoln Park, “began in 1999 as the Colorado Prison Moratorium Coalition and was formed to support legislation sponsored by Senator Dorothy Rupert (D-Boulder) and Representative Penfield Tate (D-Denver) calling for a three-year moratorium on building prisons in Colorado.”
“We have been incarcerating too many people for too long,” said Christie Donner, executive director and founder of CCJRC. “There are other strategies and investments that can be made to improve public safety. As the number of inmates decreases, it’s just a matter time before more facilities close. Kit was next on the list.”
From the beginning, CCJRC has been opposed to private prisons.
“You should not be profiting off of incarceration and it’s extremely profitable for them because they cut costs at every corner,” Donner said.
On Aug. 18, the Justice Department announced it would be phasing out its use of private prisons after a report found them to be less safe and secure than those that are federally run. The report also cited findings showing private prisons offer inmates fewer services and programs.
Approximately 22,000 federal inmates, or close to 12 percent of all federal prisoners, are housed in these facilities. The majority population of private prisons consists of undocumented males who have less than seven and half years remaining on their sentences.
“Private prisons are morally indefensible, parasitic business models,” said Timothy Markham, executive director of Colorado WINS, an organization representing 30,000 state employees, including corrections officers. “They offer low-paying jobs and dangerous working conditions. Instead of paying private out-of-state prison companies when there are empty beds in state prisons, we should be investing money to advance the rural economies of the towns in which many of these facilities are located.”
The economic impact of the Kit Carson closure to Burlington is significant. Approximately 142 people lost their jobs. The prison was also a source of revenue for the area’s schools and municipal government; it paid $1.2 million in property taxes last year. The Superintendent of Burlington Schools, Tom Slattery, estimated he would lose $400,000 of the district’s $7 million budget as a result of the facility closing.
While Donner is highly sympathetic to the impact on the residents of Burlington, she believes it’s inappropriate to use prisons as economic development.
“We can’t prop up a prison simply because there are financial consequences if it closes. Society is evolving,” she said.
For the past three years, CCJRC staff have received a steady stream of grievances from Kit Carson inmates and their family members.
“The complaints started with a lack of programming and job opportunities at the prison,” said Pamela, CCJRC communications coordinator. “Then there were problems with the kitchen. Folks didn’t feel like they were getting properly fed, for one.”
The last 18 months the facility was open things got increasingly worse.
“Constant turnover and insufficient personnel was a big problem. The largest concern was when they went without enough medical and dental staff for long periods of time,” Pamela said.
Another facet of incarceration that is getting more attention is the devastating effect it has on families and communities.
According to The Sentencing Project, over 20,000 children in Colorado have a parent in state prison.
Pamela, who has worked at CCJRC since 2006, knows the issue all too well and has testified before Congress about it.
She served four-and-a-half years in Colorado prisons for possession of methamphetamines, and she spent another three and a half out on parole. Her incarceration began several months after her husband died when her children were four and seven.
Once Pamela was sentenced, her parental rights were effectively terminated. Her young son was adopted. Her daughter, who is several years older, was in and out of 22 foster homes during Pamela’s incarceration. The daughter made it clear she didn’t want to be adopted because, as she would often say, “my mom is coming back to get me,” Pamela related.
After Pamela was released from parole in 2004, she was ultimately reunited with her daughter and the two live together.
Pamela’s son was able to stay in touch with his sister while Pamela was in prison, but his adoptive parents cut off all contact after his sister went to live with Pamela upon her release. The siblings were later able to reconnect via social media. When her son turned 18, he left his adoptive parents and moved in with Pamela and his sister.
Attitudes about sentencing and treatment have dramatically changed since the late ‘90s when Pamela was incarcerated. She believes if she had been in the same situation today she would have not done any jail time and her kids would not have been taken away.
Pamela’s goal when she started working at CCJRC was to help change the system so no one else would have to experience what she did. She feels progress has been made in the past 10 years and the closure of Kit Carson is another step in the right direction. However, both Pamela and Christie Donner believe there are still too many people behind bars and there is more work to do.
For more information on Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, visit ccjrc.org.
Editor’s Note: out of respect for her privacy, we have omitted Pamela’s last name.
